Atmospheric Unknowing | Josefina Nelirmarkka

We invite you to join artist Josefina Nelimarkka in a peripatetic exploration of her site-sensitive project, Atmospheric Un/knowing. 

A path of discovery, reflection, movement and stillness reveals poetic encounters delicately installed in the boreal forest in Southern Finland. 

A performative element permeates inception, creation and experience as walking becomes writing, writing becomes reading and the encounter is nuanced by vantage point, emotional undercurrent and external conditions.

Both artist and viewer bear witness to the symbiosis between forest and clouds, the constant exchange and delicate balance that defines not just the moment and the environment but also the self and, ultimately, the future of species.

“The outdoor installation invites the viewer for a meditative walk and performative reading of the surroundings – to pause and experience the natural world anew. Through ‘un/knowing’ the realm of air, unravelling the interconnectivity in the biosphere, the work encourages observation and contemplation of our relationship with the environment.

Connecting carefully selected sites in the forest, transparent writings hide and reveal themselves along the path. The atmospheric poetics respond to the constant change of light, vegetation and weather conditions. Whilst walking/writing/reading, the viewer encounters clouds that emerge from the sensitivity of the sky, the physicality of the experience and the fleeting moment of ‘now’.

Atmospheric Un/knowing is an enquiry into the symbiosis between the boreal forest and clouds. The forest fills the air with more than just the scent. Biogenic chemicals emitted by the coniferous trees produce aerosol particles that affect cloud formation, the hydrological cycle and global temperatures, ultimately influencing Earth’s climate sensitivity and the future of species. Both the art work and the viewer are present in the ongoing change; this is the experientiality that I wish to bring forth with my work through an ecocritical lens.”

- JOSEFINA NELIMARKKA

Find out more about how Atmospheric Un/knowing was created